posted 08-07-2001 09:18 AM ET (US)        

The Small Craft Route in Georgian Bay is the most perfect place for boating in a trailerable boat that you can imagine. We put about 500 miles under the keel of the Whaler 20-Revenge WT, almost all in protected inshore passages among the rocks and inlets. There are only two or three spots along the route which require making passage in the open water of Georgian Bay. The longest of these offshore hops is about 25 miles. Another requires about a 10 mile run between inlets. The rest of the trip is in very sheltered water.

This year the lake water levels were very low, just an inch or so above Chart Datum, which made the controlling depth on the route about 5-feet. Probably because of the low water, we encountered very few larger boats making the passage. In some stretches wihout local cottages we had the waterway to ourselves.

We made the journey in hops of about 70 miles each day, generally taking some side trips to explore inlets along the route. We began from Midland, Ontario, and went as far as Killarney, where we stayed for three nights, then returned along the same route.

We slept aboard our Whaler, but depended on the marinas where we stayed each night for bathroom facilities. We prepared breakfast aboard, using the marina electricity to make coffee, and generally had lunch underway, although we did find a few eating establishments along the route that could not be passed by and we stopped for a shore lunch.

Dinners were in restaurants, either a short walk or a short boat trip away, and I can say without reservation that I have never eaten so many consecutive good meals in restaurants. They were all excellent!

The scenery along the route is wonderful. In the extreme NE part of the route the landscape is still exactly as seen by Champlain when first navigated in 1615.

It is interesting to note that although we were abroad (in Canada), the most common small boat seen along the route was the Boston Whaler. We encountered dozens of 13-foot and 15-foot Whalers, and we also saw plenty of 16/17-foot hulls, too.

We also saw quite a number of newer Whalers of the smaller Dauntless lines. We even encountered a 24-Outrage with twin engines; that was the largest Whaler we saw.

Many sections of the route are "cottage country" and consists of thousands of small islands with cottages. Access to these homes is only via water. I think this accounts for the extraordinary high representation of Whalers, as in this area you need a boat with a great deal of utility.

The arrival of our small flotilla of Whalers often elicited visits from other Whaler owners who would come out on the dock to say hello and talk boats.

Gas prices were in the $2/gallon range, but good fuel was plentiful and never a problem.

Other expenses were very modest and made even more so by the favorable currency exchange ($1.00 US = $1.50 Canadian).

The weather was extremely cooperative, with only one brief rain, and that at night.

Making the trip is a navigation challenge, as it is quite easy to get lost among the rocks and islands, 99% of which are undeveloped and unmarked. But if you pay careful attention you will find the Canadian government has done a wonderful job of marking the route with both daymarks (on rocks) and floating aids, and their charts are excellent. We bought the official "strip charts", which consist of four booklets that have as many as five long accordian-folded sheets. These are in four-color (Black, Red, Blue, Brown) and are very easy to read. The booklets range in price from $20 to $45 (U.S), but they are worth it.

We made the cruise in the delightful company of three other whalers, LHG and LCG aboard WHALE LURE, and Jim Gibson aboard MEMORY.

If you are within trailerable range of this waterway, you should plan on making this trip yourself. It is a wonderful boating experience in a Whaler.

--jimh

posted 08-07-2001 09:36 AM ET (US)            

Looking forward to your trip details.

posted 08-07-2001 08:42 PM ET (US)            

I think it was too long a time period (9-days), and too long a hike (500 miles) to turn it into a Rendezvous-style event. But we certainly could (and should) organize something around a long weekend.

Our timing was good, too, as we had very light highway traffic on the way home, while the northbound lanes were clogged with cars and people arriving for Canada's August holiday weekend.

I used to think the North Channel was the place to go, but having seen Georgian Bay I have a new favorite. I'd go back next weekend, if I had the time available!

posted 08-13-2001 08:00 AM ET (US)            

But...why didn't you guys ask me along? I would have behaved.

posted 08-14-2001 04:58 PM ET (US)            

GGB and HH - I hope we can put something together again in the North Channel or the Georgian Bay or both one of these days; I'd enjoy meeting you both, (and I'll stick my neck out and say that I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy meeting the rest of the crew, too).

A gang of folks who enjoy their Whalers and cruising with them more would be hard to find, as would be a nicer bunch of people, whatever their interests.

posted 08-15-2001 09:47 AM ET (US)            

As I try to strech the boating season as long as possible, there is always the opportunity to do an extended weekend cruise before the beginning of Oct. this year.
See link below for a idea for a trip.

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000044.html

All the best,

posted 08-15-2001 09:13 PM ET (US)            

That sounds like it was the perfect trip. Makes me wish that I wasn't to far across the US to experience it.

Pictures please.

posted 12-05-2001 01:29 AM ET (US)            

Unfortunately, I am just starting to work on the illustrations and photographs. If you are a picture-oriented viewer then perhaps better for you to wait for the final version with all the photographs.

If you are a reader, I think you will find the cruise notes to be a fairly good read on their own, and they will definitely give you a feel for the adventure and fun we had.

I have over one-hundred-fifty photos. Mine are already scanned by the lab at high resolution to CD, but my CD drive has died! I am planning on a new one from Santa Claus.

I had several rolls of my photos marred with a sticking shutter when shooting at really fast exposures with telephoto lenses (darn 25-year-old NIKON that's been banging around boats all its life) but I was fortunate to get many, many wonderful shots from my cruising companions, Jim Gibson and LHG.

Unfortnately I have to scan those myself from the prints (not the negs) so it will take me a while to finish this.

Rather than have this article be two years old before anyone reads it, I thought I might offer it as-is, without photos, for your fall cruising reading enjoyment.

The full text version is available:

Georgian Bay Cruise 2001

posted 12-05-2001 08:54 AM ET (US)            

I have been looking forward to this narration for some time, I just printed it out and it should make for some very interesting reading at the cottage this weekend.

With this unseasonably warm weather, Georgian Bay is still " Whalerable " for the next week and possible maybe even Christmas. I think a red ribbon on the bow would be a nice touch as I pull out of the marina.

Thanks in advance.

posted 12-07-2001 03:54 PM ET (US)            

I have a couple questions that perhaps you can cover, Jimh (or LHG):

1)Can you do an introduction to GPS for those of us who don't use it regularly?
2)Where is the best place to get navigation charts/and an introduction to reading navigation charts - and who makes the "best" (meaning most updated-reliable) charts?

Perhaps I've opened up a can of worms...but the sail logs really lit a fire under my butt - I'm definitely going to make it to the NC and GB in the next 5 years (who can miss the opportunity?)...and so I better get hopping on knowing my stuff.

posted 03-10-2002 08:02 PM ET (US)            

I have been trying to get the illustrations and photographs done for the Georgian Bay 2001 Cruise Narrative, but it has been one big problem after another.

First, I discovered that my trustly old NIKON SLR had developed some light leakage, probably from banging around boats for all these years. This resulted in many of my pictures having very strange exposures and light contamination in them. Of course, I did not find this out until after I had them professionally developed at the Kodak lab and scanned from the negatives at HiRes onto CD-ROM. I was able to salvage some pictures by cropping and retouching, but many were spoiled (and they were all great shots, of course!).

Next, the CD-ROM drive on my workstation died, and it took me a while to find the one I had in the closet and get it cabled into my SCSI external buss. That finally got me going on doing the pictures. I started a couple of weeks ago.

It took some time to tweak them in Photoshop, working around all the weird splotches on the film, etc. About 6-7 days into the trip the film just gave up and I ran out of shots that could be used.

Next, I was greatly helped by the contribution of duplicate sets of the photos taken by my cruising mates, Larry Goltz and Jim Gibson. They gave me prints, giving me many wonderful shots (especially those of my own boat which are hard to take by yourself) but I had to scan them to digital images by hand on my trusty old UMAX-1220-S. That takes some time.

To make things interesting, when Larry got his film processed the place he used managed to mess up the negative strips by letting them dry together, which spoiled some of the images. More retouching for me in Photoshop.

Jim Gibson came through with many fine shots, although he was using a shorter lens than Larry and I and many of his photos needed some cropping.

Well, to make this long story come to and end (almost), I spent almost the whole weekend doing nothing but scanning, retouching, re-sizing, tweaking, uploading, etc. (and of course writing all the HTML to wrap around the images), and I have about 40 shots available now to go with the narrative.

I also broke the narrative up into nine segments, one for each day of the cruise, to make it easier to read and (most important) easier for me to edit and work on. (I actually started on this several weeks ago, but it is coming along...)

If you are still with me after all this, I can say that I have the segments for days 2-3-4 pretty much done and you are welcome to read and look at them. The other days still need some work, but there are a few pictures in there already.

Using three sources for the photographs, taken with three cameras, three photographers, three kinds of film, three different labs, three different kinds of paper, and two different scanners (the professional Labs and mine), has produced quite a range of colorimetry, composition, and exposure. I have tried to correct for all of this, but before it becomes a life-work, I thought I would just give up and put it up there for people to see.

Besides, all these problems with the pictures gives me a good reason to go back and take them all over again!

OK, here is DAY TWO :

http://continuouswave.com/sail-logs/gb2001/day2.html

You can start at DAY ONE, if you have not read it before, but there are not many pictures in that long intro:
http://continuouswave.com/sail-logs/gb2001/day1.html

Enjoy--with the lousy winter-like weather we had this weekend (snow and 45-MPH winds), a little reading about summer cruising is probably good for what ails you.

posted 03-10-2002 10:49 PM ET (US)            

Thanks

posted 03-17-2002 02:57 PM ET (US)            

I think you will really enjoy reading the narrative and seeing the pictures. There are also several chart excerpts that may be of interest to people curious about the navigation.

I'll leave this alone for a while, as I have three other great trips from last year that deserve some write-up, too.

If you like charts, take a look at this sidebar article:

http://continuouswave.com/sail-logs/gb2001/shoalNarrows.html

posted 03-17-2002 05:18 PM ET (US)            

Just got home from Church and read the whole narrative start to finish.

Sure would like an invite if you do it (or a version of it) again this year.

I have been wanting to join a Rendezvous for some time but am always torn as to what one I would do. I was leaning towards the one developing on or near Long Island but was also thinking of the one Swellmonster was starting. I could plan that on my way to Ft. Myers again.

Now I read this and here I am again not knowing which one(s) to do. I guess a lot will depend on timing.

Happy St. Pats day everyone.

posted 03-18-2002 09:07 PM ET (US)            

Great narrative. Reading it brought back many memories of the summers I spent as a kid cruising those waters with my family.

It was the summer of 1968 in Georgian Bay when I first rode in a whaler. It was a 17' standard that a family friend towed behind his Roamer. My father was impressed enough that he bought a used Nausset from Don Thompsons Sport Haus that fall. That was a very long winter for a teenage boy waiting for spring to get that beautiful boat wet.

For the next five summers we towed that Nausset behind our Matthews every place we went. It opened up many new opportunities and vistas at every port of call. But none so spectacular as the many explorations it took us on in Georgian Bay.

Thanks for bringing back all those wonderful memories.